Hiatus, what are you doing? Hiatus no... Hiatus shtahp!

Hey guys, I haven't updated here in a couple of weeks, sorry about that. I've been sort of freaking out about school lately and I hope that's understandable. Also, while I'm here, I should be able to update pretty often. Just as well, I want to thank all of you readers, whether just one time glancers or full-time readers, for getting me to 1000 views. It may not seem like a lot, but I never in my life expected that sort of thing to happen to me. You all are just great, and thank you again!


Jack Touchet

Sloslylove - Tendencies

http://sloslylove.bandcamp.com/

Sloslylove's "Tendencies" makes me think of any beach movie ever, or at the very least how they should sound. "What's that? I heard you're going out to check those swells/be a lifeguard/get a tan/play Frisbee! Take this with you!" might be the best sentence to go with this tape.

"Lost In Motion" is a fun chillwave song, perfect for any time spent in the sun. It's a beautiful track, and towards the end it throws in this short vocal snippet that seems like it was pulled directly from some 80's vhs of an obscure movie no one's ever heard of, that moves directly back into the song in a way that just follows the fun around. I love it. "Forever Love" again sounds like something pulled out of the soundtrack from Baywatch, in the best of ways. It's soft, slow, and I'm pretty sure that for the last four minutes I've been moving in slow motion, trying to save the life of someone who honestly probably didn't necessarily need saving. Still though, it's a really nice song. While it has super reverb-y lyrics in the background towards/at the end, I wish it had some more, perhaps more intelligible. It's nice on it's own though, I don't necessarily mind it at all as is.

"On and On" is a little bit darker than the songs preceding it, and again I wish it had more intelligible lyrics, but this might be my favorite song off of the album. It has this flair that's hard for me to not love. The trumpets make me think of Afternoons in Stereo, the vocal snippets in the song give it a nice feel. The integration of the percussion into such a strong part of the song is fantastic, that gun snare and the midi cowbell/tom every now and then are just phenomenal. I could go on for days with this song, but I have to move on to "Dream Girl". It makes me feel like a picnic (on the beach of course) with the sun starting to set, but not setting just yet. It has this dark bass that reminds me of an acid synth that brings back the dark side of "On and On", but the song and it's sequences are still nicely balanced in their softness. The sun starts setting again and what do you know, everything's nice and chill and you're still at the beach. I'm pretty sure if you put this song on a 80's themed radio station it wouldn't be difficult to not notice it was made just this month. The vocal snippet at the end is nice, but a little eerie. I like it.

Finally we end with "Words". This song is reverb-y enough to be chillwave, but new wave-y enough to just be new wave. It's nice, once it slows down a little bit more towards the end it delves further into the idea of being chillwave, and is nice and relaxed, until jumping back into being new wave. Now, that's not to say this is a bad movement, I really like it personally. It stays in the new wave district for a little while before taking a right back into being chillwave. It's as if the song is dancing with itself and just having a fun little time. A wonderful song to end a review.

So, that was as far as I'll get in this review. It would have gone on for a lifetime if I could manage it. It's a truly beautiful album, and I honestly wish I could pitch in the money for the cassette. Fortunately the download for this priceless gem is still for free. So if you've ever gone to the beach, or outside into a hot day, put this album on and just relax. It's good for your health. Enjoy!

Terrace - Circuits EP

http://terrace.bandcamp.com/album/circuits-ep

Ooooohoho it seems I've managed to stumble onto a dance EP. "Circute EP" is just an incredible little EP, filled with lovely fun party beats, and a certain mid-80's vibe. Stack onto that a grand voice with enough reverb a chilled out playing field, and fun dance synth and you have something that just sort of moves you. Terrace, you've got a special spot right there in my brain where I put music that makes me genuinely excited to dance around to it. Are all the songs of a generally "happy" mindset? No, but it makes a connection while infecting your body to bob around in a rhythmic manner.

Starting with "Chances", the song has an almost dark song, making me think it would be perfect if, say, Donny Darko had a dance montage. It's more than move-able, the lyrics are more or less "carpe diem", and that makes me want to party. It follows this fun dark dance-y feel straight into "Blinder". Straight out of the gate "Blinder" sets up a feel of ambiance, so you relax a bit. The song takes up a bit of dance with an eerie darkness making me feel as though if I do relax I should worry. Then it breaks in with a fun dance-y beat, and an action-y breakdown that kind of keeps me on the dancing path. So far I've been strong, but I don't know how long that will last.

Terrace keeps me in for the last half of the album, I just feel obliged to do the whole thing and I don't see why not to. "The Moon Between Us" makes me think of going down the interstate at 4 a.m. Everyone's asleep except you, and there's nothing but road and street lamp, and all that you wanted in the world was to see her again. She's miles upon miles away and you don't really know how to get there, but you know she's smiling on you. Take that, add a pinch  of asymmetrical disco beat challenging you to find the rhythm, and you have this song. It's sad sounding, I've honestly had a little trouble discerning most of the lyrics, they seem to be mostly in the form of sorrow and howls. But it still manages to be fun, and not necessarily hopeless. It's pretty, and pretty dance-y, and I'm diggin' it. Finally "Trying to Believe" sets in a very stabby synth tone. Again there's the disco beat, however rather than feeling incredibly dark it's instead only slightly dark. With brighter instruments, and a nice new wave-y square synth bass line, this piece of dance goodness might be my personal favorite.

All the songs are really fun, and the underlying theme seems to be happier than I honestly made it seem. It's really one of my favorite new albums to listen to. Between reminding me of the Cure, and reminding me of Cut Copy, it's just gorgeous. If anyone has a taste for movin', groovin', for shakin', for bakin', this album is for you.

Arctic Spaceman - "MONOLITH"

http://arcticspaceman.bandcamp.com/album/monolith

When I first opened up "MONOLITH" I was incredibly excited for more chippy goodness, as I giddily pressed the play button. What I did not expect was the chipstep, a genre I've only recently ventured into. It takes a lot for dubstep to impress me, for example using a style that isn't every other dubstep song. I have to say, you really took the trophy with this one, Arctic Spaceman. Does it have that dirty modulated bass? Yes, but does it use it in the same way that every dubstep song does? No, in fact it's quite beautiful. By the second song I was in love with the album, I'm really excited to review this.

So lets do it, shall we? Starting with "Dunno", Arctic manages to take a sort of new wave-y sound that I just adore, and mixes a modulated bassline without that overused half speed breakdown, allowing the song to keep it's mood all the way through while we're introduced with "I am Arctic Spaceman." Compared to the majority of the songs on the album, it's a bit short, but to be honest that makes me feel like rather than a track for the sake of a track, it's an introduction. This is a song designed to introduce you to what the album is, and who you're listening to, and what to prepare for. It's a really pretty song, and it's rather minimal, which I find to be a nice quality. It works really well for this. "Internet Hate Machine" starts off with a soft game-y sounding intro (I know it's chiptune, but even for that it sounds likes something from an indie soundtrack) while a siren-esque bass creeps it. The percussion hits, and a modulated bass jumps in sounding  more like a scratch dj gone terribly right than it does a dial-up connection being drop-kicked out of 7th story window and the following bounces. I like it. The song picks back up with the indie game sound from the intro, and then keeps into the scratchstep section. The entire song sounds like it could fit well for fight music, and I don't think I'd really mind that at all. Oh, by the way, I'm in love with that piano interlude. Just... absolutely enamored. Towards the end it starts sounding like a well designed house song with a grimy bassline, a sound I can't imagine most people not enjoying.

Now for "ADVENTURE!!!", that's a promising title. I feel like I've stepped into a new wave song that stepped through a game boy and a vocoder with a disco beat. I'm really loving everything going on in this song as it jumps into a basshunter seeming sound gone 8bit. It's nice and fun, danceable, and it's still pretty minimal. You don't really have to think to much to understand the different segments of the song, more than anything you can feel them. A nice thing about this song is the way the patterns work. No pattern feels like it drags on too long, once one's worked through it's either layered, glitched, or removed until later. I feel like I'd play this in my living room, maybe ten or fifteen people, everyone knows each other, and we'd just dance. It's nice, fun, and fitting. I've yet to listen to a song on this album I don't like, and I've yet to feel like one was too short or too long. "Acid Bitch" starts off reminding me of the Prodigy, I'm not sure why, it just does. It moves instead into a more rave-y feel, like something you could put over the intro rave scene in Blade and say "well... I don't think it doesn't necessarily fit." It definitely is pretty acid-y, while keeping that chippy squareness of the oscillator. It's rave-t, it's definitely dance-y, and at 3 minutes in it becomes fantastic. I'm loving it more halfway through than at the beginning, but just as well I feel like it got their in a nice amount of time to set the rave-y feel. It's pretty drone-y which is something I definitely want in a song sometimes. A nice overlay of another square-y keyboard note stab style jumps on top, and gives in a nice feel. Oh man, this is my favorite song so far.

With a name like "Horror" I have some high expectations of a darker sound, perhaps more dark house than the "Acid Bitch"'s rave-y appeal. Definitely an eerie feel to the song, it's pretty, I love all of the pitch jumps. It's a bit glitchier than the previous songs, it's kind of fun. There's a R.L. Stine seeming bass that steps in there, and then the whole song fades out. Halfway in, it changes pretty slowly. The heartbeat bass in the back is kind of messing with me in the best of ways as the electrohouse dark feel from before comes back in, this is beautiful. I think I would listen to this as night started falling while I was on a road trip with just one person. That's what I think, at least. I love how this song is feeling. Oh gosh, the glitchy bit around the four minute mark is a nice little section I wasn't expecting, definitely one of my favorites of the album, it's really hard for me to make a decision of a singular favorite though. They're pretty fantastic, though and all slightly different. So far a great album. "Swedish Von Guetta" has a nice sound. A really fun sound, like if Crash Bandicoot decided it wanted a more clubby vibe. It's pretty fun, and that sudden arpeggio and bell sound offer a lot to the table. The Rugrats-esque vocal noise made me kinda chuckle, but just as well it made a nice sound with the song. It's a really fun song, very dance-y, very uptempo, I like it. The arpeggio keeps coming back with it's square-y goodness to make the song that one feel better. It's a pretty song, I could see it on a catwalk, or maybe a vodka commercial or something of the sort.

That's my two cents on the first half of the album, and I leave it to you guys to put in the rest. It's a really fun album, a really dance-y album, and definitely a pretty album. At first I was expecting it to be mostly chipstep, but I'm glad that it wasn't. Not out of spite of ability, but simply because Arctic Spaceman has some serious skill regardless of the genre he's playing with. I would suggest this to anybody that enjoys clubbing in their living room, or even in a much larger room with real speakers or something. This album is beautiful.

Tumblr, awaaaaaaaay!!!!

To those viewers of mine who return to the scene for updates, do know that I also now have a tumblr page! It's at tuneview.tumblr.com because that makes the most sense to me. I'll try to update there just as frequently as here, with the same stuff, I hope this makes something easier for you guys!

mewithoutYou, Buried Beds, Look Mexico @ The Red 7 in Austin, Texas

http://mewithoutyou.com/

http://www.lookmexico.net/

http://buriedbeds.com/

Well, now that that's taken care of, these bands are not ranked in importance by the size of their album artwork. Is that a sassy comment? Yes, but just as well it's completely accurate as all three of these bands are absolutely amazing. I've never reviewed a show in my life, and it wasn't free to get in and none of these artists offer free music, but to be honest I don't necessarily care. This is my site, I'll run it my way, cause that's kind of what I do.

Let's start with Look Mexico, today was the first time I've been able to see them live and I've been wanting to for at least two years now, so this definitely was a joyous occasion for me. The show was great, there seemed to be a couple of issues with the amps on the left side of the stage, but that was not a deterrent. The energy from the band was wonderful, and lively. Not a single song was played with less than 100 percent. At one point Matt Agrella actually came off the stage and say down in a circle with the crowd, while Ryan Slate and Ryan Smith sat down on stage. As I said the entirety of their show was full of fun, dancey, excited energy. I'm more than super-duper excited for the new album, and hopefully to see them in the future.

Buried Beds played next. As they were setting up the stage my interest was suddenly peaked with visions of a mandolin, violin, three keyboards, two guitars, a bass, about nine percussive instruments, and a vocoder. With only five people on stage, I was more than excited to see where this went. Needless to say it went awesomely, despite the Philly based folkish band having to compete slightly with the band next door that I've assumed to be none other than "Fleshlights" or something to that effect. The poppy folkey somewhat spacey music of Buried Beds was just... Golden. They went through phases, sounding similar to The Bird and The Bee. Obviously that was just freaking awesome. For a while I was pretty sure it couldn't get any better than that, little did I know just how wrong I was. The final song of the night, starting of very mellow and calm, at the end of it all turned out to be funky folk rock at it's best. It honestly may have been my favorite song of the night, and I wish I could remember the name of it. All in all, Buried Beds were great. They were playful, energetic, talented musicians, and I look forward to my next chance to see them.

Finally we get to mewithoutYou, the show had some amazing energy, and spinning. There was so much spinning I don't really know how to describe it as anything other than Aaron Weiss doing an acrobatic damn pirouette off of the handle. It was pretty fantastic. The last album from them I had listened to was "It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright!" which is filled more with folky harmonies and so on. The show tonight was a drastic step in the backwards, though a really nice one, direction into their older style. I've never listened to a show that made me more pumped, I'm so glad that their next album is going back to their original style. Alongside some of their older songs, they played a few off of "It's All Crazy..." and I was not in any way shape or form upset. It was fun, it was just as energetic as the songs before it, and it was just as pretty as the rest of the night. I unfortunately didn't get to stay through all of mewithoutYou's performance, but I can rest easy telling myself that they played just as beautifully as the rest of their show.

This is definitely my favorite of shows that I've been to, I managed to meet Elizah of Buried Beds, as well as Matt Agrella and Ryan Smith of Look Mexico. All of them were just absolute sweet hearts, and I'm truly glad to have met them. More than that, however, I'm glad that I just went to this show, and managed to see, in order of appearance, a band I've waited years to see, a band that I managed to just absolutely fall in love with, and a band that has shown me one of the most energized nights of my life. If anyone ever gets a chance to see any of these bands, I say jump on it. Jump. Right. On it. Enjoy!

Jack Menhorn - Hack Slash Loot OST

http://jackmenhorn.bandcamp.com/album/hack-slash-loot-ost

Tonight I review my first OST or Original Soundtrack for you less savvy peeps out there. I'm really excited to review this, I don't really know how else to make up for almost a week of not being on this. Also, sorry about that. Between school things and friends it's been a pain to keep updated, but I'll try to do better. So what I'll try to do is review a couple albums tonight for you guys.

Onto the review, the first song "Hack Slash Loot (main theme)" starts off with that age-old chip-ish middle age music. It's pretty fun, actually. It's one of my favorite sounds to listen to. You have that drive up to the cymbal splash, you have the chippy piano, you have the violin, and that midi sort of quality. I love it, it's a wonderfully set up. It's repetitive enough to be loopy, which is exactly what an intro screen needs. It's also pretty enough to listen to for hours in case you zone out on the main screen. I love it, it's great. "The Descent" is lead into perfectly by the preceding song, it keeps that midi chippy violin sound with a sort of droning sound in the background. It makes for a wonderful starter level track, I can really dig it. Are the songs on here short? Hell yea they are, they're for an OST, you don't really need much more than a pretty and easily loopable track.

"They Approach" makes for a nice lead song for a looming boss fight or something similar. It's haunting, it's beautiful, it's eerie, and it's well written. It's a nice dark song that makes the listener realize that all hell is about to break loose and they better be prepared. Few things trap me better than a nice haunting refrain set to a game where-in you're getting your rear potentially handed to you. "Doom" does a great job of following this with an equally haunting an eerie song. It's almost fun to listen to it's so threatening. I'm pretty sure by this point Bowser's showing up, and that axe at the end of the bridge? Oh, he's using it. What I'm saying here, is that this is a perfect song for the boss that you shouldn't be able to beat. It's pretty looming.

Basically, this is a really nice and well made OST. I enjoyed listening to every second of it and I hope you do too! The OST is great, and I don't know why you guys wouldn't give it a chance, so do it! Night!